Agrobacterium-Mediated Transformation of Cabbage

Abstract

Cabbages are a widely grown and economically important vegetable that were domesticated during the first millennium B.C. They belong to the highly diversified Brassicaceae family comprising about 3000 species. In North America and Europe, B. oleracea white cabbage (B. oleracea var. capitata) is the predominant agronomic type; whereas in Asia, Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa subsp. pekinensis) is the most commonly cultivated cabbage species. The FAO listed the world area of cabbages harvested at 3,016,059 hectares (ha) in 2002 with the largest planted area in China (1,469,684 ha) followed by India (280,000 ha), the Russian Federation (180,000 ha), USA (104,000 ha), Indonesia (100,000 ha), Korea(s) (89,531 ha), Japan (61,000 ha) and Columbia (48,000 ha), Kenya (39,051 ha) and Belarus (27,300 ha). The remaining 30% of world planting is spread over 125 additional countries (1).

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